Money is conducting an informal, self-selecting (and therefore pretty much useless) poll as to who should be the first woman on a dollar bill. The good news is that Rand is way out in first, with over half the vote. The bad news is that Eleanor Roosevelt is second with just over 10%. Some of the others (Earhart, Tub...(Read more...)

The US Bureau of Engraving and Printing is not entirely correct. In addition to Martha Washington, Pocahontas was on the backs of the $20 Compound Interest Notes of 1864 and the $20 National Bank Notes of 1875. Beyonce and Sally Ride are both still alive. Living people have appeared on US coins and paper money, but it is exceptional and usually considered bad form. Technically, it is not supposed to happen, but in modern times "special" legislation has allowed it. (In times gone by putting the face of the person responsible was deemed appropriate enough. Living presidents often appeared on private currency and scrip.)

Spencer M. Clark (1810-1890) served under Abraham Lincoln as the the first Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau (now known as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing). He had his own portrait placed on these notes, an act that (once discovered by his superiors) led to legislation preventing a portrait of a living person from appearing on Federal currency. -- http://www.papermoneyfacts.com/five_cents/fractional_currency_five_cents_clark.htm

No mention of that at the BEP biography of Mr. Clark here. Spencer M. Clark was ordered to put William Clark (of Lewis & Clark) on the emergency fractional notes, but took the orders for "Clark" to mean himself.

Alive and well Alabama governor T. E. Kilby appeared on the 50-cent Alabama Centennial commemorative of 1921.

... and Eunice Kennedy Shriver on the Special Olympics commemorative dollar of 1995:

I wouldn't want to see Rand on a dollar bill - not while it's being printed (excuse me, "Quantitatively Eased") in such great numbers. Better to wait till that time somewhere in the more distant future, when the people in government have a much better sense of managing the money (or get out of the money business and let it go private).

Eleanor Roosevelt would be a good choice, considering. For my last talk at the Texas Department of Public Safety Toastmasters, I contrasted response to Hurricane Katrina against the response to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Betsy overflowed the levies, flooded Lake Pontchartain, displaced thousands, 75 died, two villages were washed away. But the federal response worked - before FEMA... The federal emergency managers thought in terms of nuclear war with Russia. Suddenly LBJ was on the phone. They had no special training for this. But they were from that previous generation of personal responsiblity.

I closed with this picture and asked if you could imagine Michelle Obama there.

Save Ayn Rand for gold. But honoring Eleanor Roosevelt is not wholly inappropriate, whatever her political views.